Jean A. Hoerni

A memorial service will be held February 13 for Jean A. Hoerni, one of the "Fairchild Eight" who helped revolutionize the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley.

Mr. Hoerni, who was 72, died January 12 in Seattle, where he was living in retirement. The cause of death was listed as complications of myelofibrosis.

One of the eight founders of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957, Mr. Hoerni was credited with building the bridge from the transistor to the integrated circuit. A process he invented is still used to fabricate integrated circuits.

A research scientist more at home in the laboratory than the executive suite, Mr. Hoerni worked on the first transistor with Nobel Prize winner William Shockley. In 1961 he left Fairchild to take over the semiconductor division of Teledyne, and in 1967 he founded Intersil, a Cupertino firm that produced memory products, including electronic watch components.